The Vegetarian Option
by Doodled93
Summary: Will hasn't eaten meat since his dad died when he was a kid-hasn't been able to stomach it. It's not moral, it's just unappealing. Too bad his dad never gave him the name of his butcher.He doesn't mind Hannibal's cooking, though, and if he could only remember to ask him who his butcher is. Hannibal is simply curious how deeply Will's nature is buried. He'd almost missed seeing it
1. Chapter 1

**Summary: Will hasn't eaten meat since his dad died when he was a kid-hasn't been able to stomach it. It's not moral, it's just unappealing. Too bad his dad never gave him the name of his butcher.  
He doesn't mind Hannibal's cooking, though, and if he could only remember to ask him who his butcher is...**

**Hannibal is simply curious how deeply Will's nature is buried. He'd almost missed seeing it himself.**

_Idek guys.  
Hope you enjoy, and drop me a line to let me know what you think :)_

_I don't know what I'm thinking. I have too many universes in my head._

The Vegetarian Option

Chapter 1

Will doesn't eat meat.

He thinks the last time he ate meat and enjoyed it was probably back when he was a kid. When his dad was still alive, he thinks, and that seemed like such a long time ago; eons even, a whole lifetime away.

He ate fish—and he thanked any and all of the powers that be that he could still stomach it, but he was mostly vegetarian.

That's what he told people anyway.

It was the easiest way to get around having to politely starve when being served each cut, after all.

He had fond memories as a child of barbeques, roasts, chops, burgers and stir-fry's, whole meals revolving around whichever cut of meat his dad would get from his butcher. There was always meat for dinner, with leftovers and fish for breakfast and lunches, and he had an unfortunately vague sense memory of the _smells_ that would waft from windows, smells that would call Will away from whichever game he was playing.

But then his dad died, and suddenly any sort of meat was _awful_.

Almost as bad as having to be around people.

His dad and he never had the money to spend eating out—and Will hadn't wanted to—but he'd never noticed how stomach churning the smells coming from deli's and diners were, never noticed how the smells from neighbors barbeques could smell so strongly of charcoal and souring musk. It must be something psychological, he'd thought at the time, but fish was still alright, and it was easier to get fish and mourn than it was to bring himself to any sort of doctor, so he'd left it.

Fishing was a way to feed himself and mourn his dad and remember him, anyway; a three for one action as it were. He learned how to fish from his dad, learned how to clean and prepare it, and those lessons were paired with how to fix boats. They travelled a lot, but fishing, fixing boats, and having meat dinners were constant.

On especially bad nights he thinks that if there was one thing he wished he could have asked his dad before he passed, it would be for the number for his best-kept secret.

His butcher.

But, whoever it was never called, didn't show to the small funeral, and was more than likely long gone by now.

So Will said he was vegetarian, and sometimes he got sneers from those who thought eating fish was cheating somehow, got scrunched eyebrows from people who really _loved_ meat, and he had so many more demons in his mind than the thoughts of vapid and vicious vegetarians, of baffled omnivores that it really wasn't an issue.

He bought meat for his dogs, being a great believer that kibble wasn't the only thing they should be eating (especially since they regularly came from the streets), and it didn't have quite the stink that cooked and processed meats made for people had, so he could handle it.

Turkey necks and beef and pork knuckles went into the freezer for special snacks for his slow-growing pack, and one of the crisping drawers in his fridge went towards the scraps and fatty bits he's gotten from the local butcher, all sealed up in plastic bags.

He thinks perhaps it's his willingness to still buy meat for his dogs that has people questioning.

It's why he's perfectly happy with the fact that he doesn't know people well enough for them to know his eating habits, so he doesn't actually have to put up with questions.

After a while, it even became… known, he supposes, that you didn't try to feed Will Graham.

He has vague memories of being an active child, lots of running and playing in fields, forested bits, climbing shipyard while his father worked. He was still active now—he hiked with his dogs, searched out traps left out on his land and closing them, and when his thoughts bounced off and bruised the inside of his skull he ran through the training exorcises from when he was in the police force. But he had nowhere near the same level of energy or health as he did when he was a kid.

He figured it was probably due to a slightly unhealthy diet—you can't entirely substitute out meat with fish, after all.

So he might always look a little wane, a little underfed, but things had gotten to the point where people just learned not to try and feed him. The "I packed too much for lunch" excuses petered out under his consistent social awkwardness and faintly ill expression.

The Nichols' looked at him with sad, tired eyes, and with the scent of reheated meatloaf in the air bringing bile to the back of his throat, he asked about their cat.

He didn't like cats much, but he has to give it to the little guy when he's sniffing under Elise Nichols' door.

It's a relief to have the thick smell of blood at the back of his throat, enough that he can keep Mr. Nichols away from his daughter's body.

The migraine he gets after… _socializing_ with Katz, Zeller, and Price, after being pushed about by Jack is intense. He doesn't know if it is solely from the interactions, or if any of it is from the great wall of _whydidyoudoit_ and _howareyousorryyoukilledher_ he's getting from the case, or even if it's from the noxious smells from the Nichols' kitchen…

But it's relieved somewhat by Winston.

The angry tight feeling behind his eyes and pounding through his mind relaxes at the sight, the click of nails against the road, and by the time he gets back to his place, gets sausage, gets back to where he saw him, and eventually back to his place with Winston in tow, his mind is calm.

He knows dogs.

He knows _his_ dogs, particularly, and he thinks Winston will fit in just fine.

Elise Nichols fits into his nightmares just fine, too.

Jack Crawford, in fact, is a different kind of nightmare, but he fits too.

He's loud, and angry, angry even when he's looking calm, and Will can see irritation tick under his skin when he can stand to look at him. Jack shouts and rages, and Will can't handle that. Not after he quit the police force, not after he took up talking _at_ students to replace conversing _with_ people, not since—

Jack was on a mission to get more out of Will than Will thought he had inside; Jack wanted to scrape him hollow, scrape out his heart thumping with fear, scrape out his twisting guts, leave him empty for Jack to fill with glorious purpose and drive. The shell of his skin replaced by armor of his imagination.

But, he wanted to shout, it wasn't going to happen. _It wasn't going to happen_.

And then the autopsy, and his mind feels scraped clear in a way that Jack hasn't managed.

"Huh, why would he cut it out if he was just going to sew it back in again?"

"There's something wrong with the meat."

Liver cancer.

"Yeah he's—eating them."

The sterility of the autopsy bay and the tang of blood weighs heavy at the back of his throat and on his tongue, and no one, not even Jack, tries to get him to eat anything.

The article Freddie Lounds writes is tasteless—if his choice of words reminds Jack to forget about feeding him, then all the better—and it's Jack's eyes he looks to, betrayed, when he's psychoanalyzed by the stranger Jack brought in.

He looked charmed at Will's awkward and sub-par socializing skills, his eyes alight with interest that made Will snarl while making his escape—he wasn't lying.

He did have a class.

The other man got Will's hackles up, and he kept his eyes alternatively downturned or closed the whole class to avoid glaring into the darkness.

The man was charmed—charmed—by Will's manner, and the last man to show interest was the one who got him into this nightmare of a case, who set Will tracking a sensitive psychopath with a taste for human flesh…

So having this man, this Doctor Hannibal Lecter, knocking at his motel room door with Tupperware in hand…

His appearance at the motel was almost as much as a surprise as the smell coming from the Tupperware he was carrying.

It smelled… good.

The containers must have a crack in them, for him to smell it.

"A protein scramble to start the day," Doctor Lecter was saying, "Some eggs, some sausage…"

The sausage fairly melts in his mouth, the flavour coating his palate and taste buds, and suddenly he's starving.

_This_, he thinks, _this was what I've been missing._

The noise of appreciation he makes without meaning to seems to please Dr. Lecter, a small smile tucking itself into the corner of his mouth even before Will compliments and thanks him.

And then there's small talk.

Only it's not as awkward as it usually is, likely due to Dr. Lecter's experience as a psychiatrist, though Will can't keep himself from deliberately keeping his side of things stilted. He focuses on the eggs, saving the sausage for last, savoring how the juices from the meat had lent flavour to the scramble, and he means it when he says that Lecter doesn't interest him.

He's interested in who his butcher is—but that's not the same thing.

He's interested in where he learned to cook like this—and that's closer, but still not…

Though—

A much-neglected laugh is pulled from his throat mid swallow when gives his insight on how Jack sees him—because he can see it himself now that it's mentioned—and talking about the most recent case is startlingly easy. Lecter seems genuinely pleased that the, the _profiler's block_ he'd been experiencing in regards to The Minnesota Shrike has lifted, and his expression doesn't shift when Will says the copy-cat killing was practically gift wrapped for Will.

(no, not _practically_, it _was_, and it was a little, a lot, flattering interesting to think of a crime scene gifted to Will, made with him in mind if not dedicated in design. If Lecter hears any of it in Will's voice, sees any of his thoughts in his face and movements, his expression still doesn't shift, and he's a little more interesting for it)

He is so very easy to talk to, even after the strange (flattering, interesting, poetic, lovely, insightful) comparison between a Mongoose and Will, and it's odd that Dr. Lecter takes pleasure in Will enjoying his food.

But while Will is lingering over the last mouthfuls of sausage, the stilted silence smoothing to something comfortable between them, Dr. Lecter watches with smiles in his eyes and Will never gets around to asking him about his butcher.

.

The woman on the phone pricks at his patience, annoyance curling behind his eye lids even as whatever cologne Dr. Lecter wore soothed his senses. He'd been surrounded by it, suffocated in the most pleasant way, on the drive over, and he'd been annoyed at him for it. Alana had made him annoyed at first, too, because her perfume was soft and flowery, more an oil at her wrists and neck than the noxious cloud most women wore like a shield. She also didn't pry, didn't try for private conversation to pick apart his already fractured brain.

The comparison was annoying, too.

Will didn't want anyone else in his life, certainly not Dr. Lecter with his delicious food and good company. He didn't want him, or his cologne, but mostly he wanted the woman to stop gossiping.

He ignored her question.

One of the resignation letters left a number, but no address. First difference he'd noticed so far… He'd also missed work for days at a time.

"Garrett Jacob Hobbs?"

When she says she 'doesn't keep company with these people' the annoyance clenching in his chest gains claws; he remembers people like her from when he was a kid. He and his father were 'these people'. People didn't care if their kids played manhunt with the boat repairman's son, so long as they didn't bring him home for dinner.

When, while moving the boxes of paperwork to the trunk of the car, Dr. Lecter tipped papers into the woman's face, Will isn't sorry that she gets a paper cut right by her jaw. It's petty, he knows, but doesn't care.

He doesn't like her.

He doesn't know her, not really, but he knows enough, and doesn't care enough to look at her and see more.

Garrett Jacob Hobbs, though…

Will doesn't like him, but he _knows_ him. Holds his hands over his wife's slashed throat and feels the rough edge to the cut—quick and uncaring, a hunter slashing the throat of a kept animal before turning to the doe in the forest.

Her hands clench on his arm, slick with her own blood, then slacken with blood loss, and he can't focus on her when Hobbs is off to hunt his Golden Ticked.

His Golden Hind.

Hobbs holds his daughter, struggling, breathing through the rapture of catching his prey, and even with Will appearing in the kitchen, even with blood on his hands and gun steady, he still savors the moment he's been avoiding working up to avoiding all this time.

Wills hand tremble, blood slick on the grip, and his sim wavers for only one moment—

Something foreignfamiliarstrange in him resonates in what he sees-hears-feels from Hobbs—

And that's when Hobbs pulls the knife against his daughter's throat, an animal sound leaving his throat even before the first of eight bullets finds home in his body.

He lunges for his daughter again—

Another shot, and then again, and then again, and again, again, again—

She's bleeding out, too, like her mother, the cut is smooth and clean under his palm, but shallow. A cut made against a struggling beast—

"See… see…"

and he does—n't. He doesn't.

He sees too much, he sees too little, and he doesn't see what Hobbs does, but he does see Hobbs. Eight bullets, hardly half a round, and his heart shudders and aches for the nameless girl under his hands, because she should have been one before this. He knows. She should have been gone—

Strong—stronger—hands replace his own around her neck. He's panting, adrenalin coursing through his body. There's blood on—everything. There's blood on everything. It's on his hands, his arms, his face, thick on his tongue and sliding down his throat like honey. He sees Dr. Lecter—is he the right kind of Doctor for this?—through a mist of blood, as though the very air is made thick with the lifeblood of a killer, and he can't blink but he realizes it's blood splatter on his glasses.

He breathes in pants, short bursts until all he can smell is blood, blood and Dr. Lecter's cologne, and a spicy sweet smell that must be the girl.

He swallows convulsively, licks his lips and ends up with more blood in his mouth.

He shudders with feeling.

His heart beats too loud, and it doesn't calm until after he sees Lecter in the hospital with…

With Abigail.

Her name is Abigail.

He dozes, eventually, Hannibal's cologne and what remains of Abigail's perfume blocking out the antiseptic of the hospital, and just breathes.

_Yep. Just-yep.  
Warnings ahead: Cannibalism, descriptions of cannibalism, certain people enjoying their cannibalistic tendencies, sex (rating will change, warning will be given before chapter), killing, supernatural cannibalism, and...  
Will not realising that he was simply raised to enjoy a certain 'cut' of meat._

_Chapter 3 will be Hanni's pov and should clear up some things._

_If you have a suggestion, wish, or other idea for this fic, let me know :)  
Hope you enjoyed!_

~Doodled93~


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary: Will hasn't eaten meat since his dad died when he was a kid-hasn't been able to stomach it. It's not moral, it's just unappealing. Too bad his dad never gave him the name of his butcher.  
He doesn't mind Hannibal's cooking, though, and if he could only remember to ask him who his butcher is...**

**Hannibal is simply curious how deeply Will's nature is buried. He'd almost missed seeing it himself.**

_If anyone can think of an alternative title for this fic, let me know. I have mixed feelings for this. I was tempted to just call this 'wendigo' and leave it at that :P _

_Enjoy!_

The Vegetarian Option

Chapter 2 – Amuse-Bouche

Pounding on a flimsy door, a great beast stomping forward, the sound of a great, stuttering heartbeat loud in his ears…

The sound through his earmuffs turn the crack of each shot into a new aspect of one nightmare.

Will practices at the shooting range because no matter how it's covered up, the noise of it doesn't try to fool you; the holes that appear on the target don't pretend to be harmless; the kickback fights the very notion of gentility.

_(Another shot, and then again, and then again, and again, again, again—)_

And… he needed to work on his aim.

Will shook his head, and flipped the switch to bring his target forwar—

Hobbs was coming, he was there, and Will changed the clip working on automatic, fired, fired again, but he was still coming, he was getting closer, again, again, again he shoots, eight shots and more (more?) but Hobbs keeps getting closer, staring with milky dead eyes—

He wasn't lying when he said his thoughts weren't 'tasty'.

It was a wonder Will ate anything at all. Ever.

.

Chippewa National Forest is beautiful, the cabin Jack brings him to is quaint, and Will can easily imagine bringing his dogs out here, thought they'd enjoy the new smells—

The wood of the interior is clean, and well kept, and the thick smell of blood feels heavy in his throat. The thick smell of _meat_.

It isn't the horror story laid out that you'd expect—there's a taxidermy stag, the equipment for the work, furs, animal skulls…

The antler room was something else.

He felt like his brain was beating itself against the walls, he the heart in a ribcage of sharp, twisted bone.

There, Elise Nichols hung, and likely 7 girls before her.

"It could be a permanent installation in your 'evil minds' museum," he says to Jack, his flashlight turning the room into a study of shadows.

Jack doesn't rise to the bait.

The thought brings to mind that hair, skin, viscera, just about any bit of the body could be used for bait, be used as lures, and Will wonders how far down in the water Jack is that he can't see—

Ah, but there is a shinier piece attracting his eye.

A vision of Abigail, pipes and tubing and bandages 'round her neck like a noose, and Jack is reaching for the other end.

Will has to take a deep breath.

The curling strand of hair catches his eye, red-orange like blood stain under the glare of his flashlight, and it is a welcome distraction to Jack's scapegoat theory.

Abigail does not need this.

Will does not need this, either, but if he does not…

He sighs.

When he next enters his classroom, he pauses in the doorway. There is one point in the room where, unless you're standing front and center, there is a block of space you can stand and not be seen. Will can hear the rustling of a full classroom, and the doorway is clogged with the still-too-much cologne and perfume of the young, of dozens of students.

The room, he knows, will be full.

It always is.

He sighs, and adjusts his glasses.

The standing ovation is just as uncomfortable as he remembers, before, as if he'd stepped into the flesh-suit of Garrett Jacob Hobbs for the accolades, as if he'd _wanted_ to—to—to—

He pulls up Hobbs' resignation letter.

"Does anyone see the clue?"

A smattering of hands, like he knew there would be, and he finds focus on the glare off his glasses to avoid—everything.

He should have called in a sick day.

He makes the mistake of looking back at the picture of Hobbs.

_(—the cut is smooth and clean under his palm, but shallow. A cut made against a struggling—)_

Some students linger at the edge of his periphery at the end of his lecture, questions no doubt bubbling beneath their skin, but he doesn't look at any of them. Focuses on organizing and reorganizing his papers, collecting them from the sprawl he'd put them in at the beginning of class, and eventually they are gone. The few who linger will probably tell the others that a woman came to his class and he willingly exchanged pleasantries—Will doesn't look forward to his next class.

This would be a repeat of last year, where Alana's appearance and his comparative friendliness would prompt half-dozen trainees to try at some sort of relationship.

Will appreciated her company, and her warning of Jack's ambush, but not what would follow.

The review board wanted to give him a commendation.

Will thinks it's almost as inappropriate as the trainee's applause.

Jack wanted him in the field.

Alana didn't.

Jack wanted him back in the field… pending a psych evaluation.

The psych eval wouldn't be with Alana.

It would be with Dr. Lecter.

Watching them talk, side by side, on the same subject, is a study in control. Where Jack defends, Alana defies, and then they switch. Where Will wavers, they oppose each other.

Where Will is certain—like he is _certain_ he doesn't want to talk with Dr. Lecter—they are a united front.

"Wait, so the psych eval. isn't a formality?"  
"No, it's so I can get some sleep at night. I asked you to get close to the Hobbs case, I need to know that you didn't get too close."

Indignation clawed somewhere between his lungs and his stomach at the hypocrisy. It was Jack who had verbally assaulted Will in the men's bathroom for not cozying himself up in the Minnesota Shrike's headspace, and now, after he's caught, Jack realizes that's a _bad_ thing?

"Therapy doesn't work on me."

And for good reason. He knows all the tricks, all the things to look for—he'd tried therapy, once. _Once_. He'd gone through his courses, and knew what it would entail, and thought he'd give it a try to see if it would help him any.

Instead, Will ended up picking Mr. Summers apart. For every soft inquiry the man had, Will's blunt honesty developed a sharper and sharper edge.

For every one of Will's returns, Mr. Summers grew agitated, his questions turned more pointed, more concerned with gaining back some level of control than with the session itself.

Will did not return, after that.

He didn't think Mr. Summers did, either.

"Come on Will, _I need my beauty sleep_!"

He didn't turn.

Dr. Lecter rubber stamps Will, and he cannot figure out why.

As someone who makes a living getting into other people's heads—and teaching others how to do it, too, it's… different.

They toss words to each other catching and returning in an easy flow as Will explores the upper level of Dr. Lecter's office. He finds it soothing, in a way, the repartee, even talking about Jack's upsetting theory on Abigail's involvement. It's a relief that someone as… settled, mentally and emotionally, as Dr. Lecter is feeling similar feelings, thinking mirrored thoughts. Makes him feel a bit less like he's carried over the neurons and synapses of Hobbs' paternal instincts into his own skin.

Considering the man tried to slit Abigail's throat, it's a relief.

Conversation flows like swirls of water, soothes and erodes bits of truth with every pass, carries those bots with it with the tide, and it's strange.

Weird. Odd.

Will doesn't do conversation, not really, and yet Dr. Lecter seems to be enjoying Will's snarky attitude, his snide commentary. Will can pick up that much from him.

When it is time to leave, his stomach decides to speak up.

His insides had been wound up into enough knots that he hadn't eaten much beyond coffee and toast from that morning, but any embarrassment over such noises seemed entirely overlooked by Dr. Lecter.

"Missed lunch?"

"Something like that." Will shifted, turning towards the door to make his escape, when Dr. Lecter held up one hand. He didn't touch him, but the one gesture brought him up short.

"Ah, well, if you would wait here for one moment," Lecter went through one of the doors in his office, and returned shortly with a Tupperware in hand. Will shook his head before Lecter could say anything.  
"No, really, I don't…"

"I must insist. I'm afraid I made up more lamb for myself last night than I could finish, not a usual situation I find myself in, and you would be doing me a great service."

Will found the round glass Tupperware pressed into his hands.

"I…"

"Will."

Dr. Lecter held eye contact—Will didn't know when it had started.  
"I'll… return the Tupperware. Later. Thanks."

It wasn't until he was nearly home that he realized that he'd decided to make another appointment with Dr. Lecter.

He doesn't know how he feels about that.

The leftovers, however, are delicious.

Beverly Katz is blunt and uncomfortable to be around

_("… are you unstable?")_

but seems to view Will's own blunt manner as some wry sense of humour. It's not. She thinks he's bragging when he says he's been stabbed. He's not.

He is very, very uncomfortable with her hands on him, adjusting his stance in front of the target, but the next five shots hit within the target. Where he was aiming, just about.

"You come all the way down here just to teach me how to shoot?"

"No," she says with a smile, oddly like they're friends (or at least friend_ly_), "Jack sent me down here to find out what you know about _gardening_."

Elk Neck State Forest is beautiful, but in a different way to Chippewa National Forest. The underbrush is thick, and the canopy is alive with birdsong, and unlike Hobbs' Cabin, the bodies are laid out in neat rows.

The smell of decomposition is rotten-sweet in his lungs, a rich compost doused in sugar-water, and Hobbs is there, staring at nothing, grabbing—

He finds himself back at Dr. Lecter's offices, returning the rubber-stamped evaluation instead of the Tupperware.

"This may have been premature."

"…What did you see? Out in the field."

There is no comparison. Mr. Summers was a childs' cross-stitch pattern to 's tapestry. He sees so much more, knows what to say—

"Hobbs."

"An association?" He doesn't assume, only requests clarification.

Will makes it clear.

He tries—in a way he hasn't before—to make it so, so clear.

It might have been too much.

"Is it harder imagining the thrill somebody else feels killing, now that you have done it yourself?"

Will has no words.

He… does…n't? Maybe? Was it harder?

His mind had slipped into the scene, smooth like butter; a fish released back to water—

But not the right body.

The wrong body of _water_.

This pond was not his home, though he could swim it easily.

He found himself nodding, jerkily, because 'yes' was the correct answer, 'yes' it was harder to imagine.

Dr. Lecter looks down after a moment, and somehow Will imagines that he understands what Will isn't saying, what Will isn't thinking, and—blessedly, he changes course.

"The arms, why did he leave them exposed? To hold their hands?" he almost laughs, "To feel the life leaving their bodies?" He almost laughs at that, too, and Will's mind is set to running.

The conversation works back and forth as it did earlier—not a fluke—and the shape of the ball changes shape, becomes sharper and infinitely more comfortable.

Lecter assumes 'crops', and Will doesn't ask, and Will throws back 'fertilizer', and 'fungus', and Lecter doesn't ask, instead throws 'connections', and it's a hook.

He laughs at Dr. Lecter's assumption to Will's ability to connect, because it's too close and too far equally, and then the solution is there, voiced in an accent Will couldn't quite place but coming from Will's own mind, too, and then he's gone. Gone, with a half-promise, half-apology about the Tupperware, and somehow leaves with more leftovers, and…

Doesn't know how to feel about that.

Conversation didn't usually just _flow_ like that, not with him.

At home, his dogs are as confused as ever that he's got meat for himself, that what they smell isn't a promise of a treat, but he can't bring himself to share.

Instead he throws them beef knuckles and pig ears, and lets the beef saturate his tastebuds.

Dr. Lecter had given the dish a name, one Will couldn't bring to mouth even if he could remember the French curve of it, but all it needed to be known as was delicious.

He didn't think he could handle thinking the flavors were earthy, but there was a smokiness to it that curled around his palate pleasantly.

He realizes this is the second time he'd forgotten—entirely—to ask Lecter where he got his meat.

.

It's their conversation in his mind when he says the victims were diabetics, but it was Zeller's words

"Friends helping friends,"

that brings it to the forefront.

And then it is so, so simple.

Obvious.

He's reeling, enough that Katz's immediate belief and Zellers' scramble for proof (and the lack-thereof) doesn't register, doesn't matter, because they'd be confusing anyway and he has to focus.

Stammets is easy to find, after that.

At least on paper.

He's gone when they get to his workstation, his coworkers blank and confused, and he wonders at what their expressions would be like if they saw the girl buried in fungus fertilizer in his trunk.

The smell is horrendous, but apparently not enough to kill the girl.

She'll need therapy, he thinks, and hopes she finds herself a Lecter rather than a Summers.

Katz's reluctance to be the voice to Freddie Lounds' words is nice, in an odd way, but he's heard worse. Lounds' ability to hurt with her words is impressive, but Will had been the odd new kid all over Louisiana, and several states besides.

Her words don't hurt him, but he can see, suddenly and vividly, how someone with a need to connect would see her article.

He doesn't know when, though.

He mutters what he thinks, doesn't know or care if Jack heard him, because if a deranged mind found Lounds after her article, he wouldn't be the deranged mind to ensure a protective detail on her.

The stag is new.

Its slow, even steps remind him of the shooting range—a monster over the floorboards, a pounding at the door—but it doesn't look like any stag Will has seen.

The antlers are right, and it's got the right shape, but it's…

The edges are feathery—not like his dogs, but like a bird, and it turns the corner without paying him any mind.

He wonders what it would take for it to turn and look at him.

That he is dreaming is… not disappointing?

Conversation isn't tossed back and forth between he and Alana as easily as with Dr. Lecter—less of a toss, more awkwardly rolling the ball between them with their feet.

There is an undercurrent there, a subtext that clearly says 'we are friends but one of us is a therapist and one of us has mental problems' and it's not far from either of their thoughts. They know who they are, and it makes things stilted as they figure out where they can push, and where they need to pull back.

He isn't surprised that Stammets finds Lounds.

He is surprised that it's himself that Stammets is interested in.

He is… surprised isn't the right word, for what he feels about what Stammets was planning on _doing_, what he was planning on _doing_ to _Abigail_.

He rages, and panics, and there is too much going on in his head for him to feel surprised about that.

He is tempted to shoot him in more than just the arm, but…

Abigail is behind him, and watches Stammets as police head their way. Watches as his eye lids twitch and his face twitches, only partly from the raze of a bullet wound as hi mind convinces himself that this is the only way he knows how to _connect_.

It's all about connections.

Jack looks at Will, at Stammets, and the single shot, and is content and convinced this means Will is alright.

Will doesn't know if he's allowing Jack to believe a lie.

Talking with Dr. Lecter relaxes something in him, lets something loose that he doesn't know if he should be afraid of.

He doesn't know if he should be pleased that Stammets didn't evoke the same feelings in him as Hobbs did.

But then, he didn't _kill_ Stammets, Lecter points out.

"Did you really feel so bad because killing him felt so good?"

His voice is shaky and hushed when he says he liked killing Hobbs, the truth of his jumbled mind voiced in this unerringly neat room. He waits for it to drift, to knock things loose and create the mess his secret truths always did when he voiced them, but Dr. Lecter seemed to absorb it into his very being.

"Killing," he says, "must feel good to God. He does it all the time. And are we not created in his image?" it is not a question but it shakes Will up inside, shakes loose words, and he is waiting on baited breath, on what feels like his last breath, for what is said next.

"God is terrific. He dropped a church roof on 34 of his worshippers last Wednesday night in Texas, while they sang a hymn."

"Did God feel good about that?" Will wonders what he would see if he were there, to see the destroyed roof, what he would see and hear and understand. Wondered if he'd feel the warm burn in his sternum, the fluttering in his stomach, the fluttering lower, lower, if shivers would race up his spine and into his hair like delicate fingers of a comb

Dr. Lecter's slight tilt to his head allows that possibility, and offers another.

"He felt powerful."

_Next chapter is Hanni's pov guys. I have no clue how I feel about that. _

_Though soon Hannibal will find out about Will's apparent vegetarianism, and no one will have an idea what that's about except for Hanni. _

_Thanks to everyone for the unanimous enthusiasm for this story, and the sick and twisted suggestions sent to me via PM or other. I love it :D _

_*insert grabby hands here*_

_Thanks you all so much for the support!_

~Doodled93~


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